The Code

I usually don't go on here to burn films that have so few ratings or reviews, but after watching this last night on MUBI, I felt the need to come on here and vocalize just how bad of a feeling this film is likely to leave with you. It literally affected my sleep because it made me depressed that films like this exist and that people wasted time making them. The film is weirdly formulaic in its plot machinations for being so aggressively, opaquely anti-aesthetic in terms of its looks.

The other person on here says "Eugene K's films are almost as hard to review as they are to describe." I don't know about this guy's other films but this one is really easy to describe: it's unfunny camp. What's odd is it doesn't even try to be funny -- it just tries to be "bad."

I think the idea ungirding the film is if you lay hard with a stylistic "anti-aesthetic" --- all other poorly drafted aspects of your film will be forgiven or forgotten, b/c the audience will just assume it's all intentional. There's a segment in the movie where the director puts music that you'd only find in a "mormon family pranks" tiktok channel. My only takeaway is this was done on purpose to make you think "why on earth are this using that awful, incongruent music" so you can be distracted from the awful acting and terrible writing that follows.

On top of all this, the film looks immensely bad -- but that's sort of intentional. It's shot on surveillance cameras, go-Pros, camcorders, spy cams. However, one has to wonder ---- why? Does this help the rail-thin plot in any way? Not really. It's not even really consistent in its use of the cameras. Does it contribute to any kind of pleasurable experience for the viewer? No, not at all. It's purposely and almost opaquely disorienting -- in a way that might just turn your stomach. What was I supposed to feel from this besides disgust and anger that the film is shown to me in this way?

The acting -- i have to assume -- is meant to be camp. However, the campy, sarcastic-seeming acting is throughout -- so you can't tell if and when anyone is being sincere. Again, if that's the point --- Why? Doesn't that ruin the cinematic experience to never know if the actor is being sarcastic or not? Especially when there are story elements that make it really confusing if the actor is being facetious?

If there WERE meant to be sincere moments, then I'm at a loss. These two leads swing from being either weirdly monotone or comically soap-opera-dramatic. Everything they say is almost completely unconvincing. Was anyone really having feelings haha? Was i meant to sympathize with either character?

Plot points are given exclusively through a character TELLING you the plot point straight to the camera. However, the central conflict: "they're not having sex" -- is barely a conflict at all. They actually do have sex throughout, or at least get "half way" there. Whatever distracts them from having sex is so contrived that, again, you have to assume it's on purpose. But why? There's literally a moment where the main girl says she can't have sex because she's in "puzzle-mode brain" because she wants to solve an escape room. And yes, her main problem is that her boyfriend isn't having sex wither.

The filmmaker thought it would be funny to do a quirky nonsequitur in the penultimate segment of the film --- okay... i guess that all was supposed to be amusing... It wasn't.

Then the film ends with a nonsensical 'ocean's11-tier' reveal of 'what was going on the entire time.' Of course, it makes no sense but I guess it not making sense was, again, supposed to be the point. Why? To what end? I'm sure they'll say "who cares; just enjoy the movie." Problem is, there's nothing to enjoy.

Bad aesthetic, bad acting, unfunny segues, tiktok-zoomer-style editing. I guess if you find any of these things appealing -- this film is for you.

Which means its for nobody.

Eugene K's films are almost as hard to review as they are to describe. Though I am a big fan of what he's doing, I give movies numerical ratings with a "universal eye", and I know this movie would absolutely scramble the brain of and infuriate the average person. Like every Eugenius movie I've seen, The Code is an utter smorgasbord of chaos: there are moments of brilliance and profundity, and just as many moments, if not more, where it feels like the cast and the director are taking a big steamy dump all over the viewer's head, and I have respect for each and every one of those moments.

What draws me most to Eugene's films, outside of his innovative ideas and methods of filmmaking, is his casting. As he stated in the Q&A I observed after the screening, he intentionally works with very specific types of individuals. Dasha Nekrasova, Peter Vack, and Ivy Wolk, for example, are all extremely polarizing actors who are also the epitome of living, breathing "cult classics". What they bring to films exists outside of the realm of "acting" - it's more about who they really are, and how that translates through the filmic lens. I've always perceived Dasha as a straight succubus, and here that is played up far beyond any other role of hers that I've ever witnessed. IT'S CERTAINLY QUITE EFFECTIVE. Vack gives him most disciplined and cohesive performance. And Ivy Wolk is just seemingly allowed to be herself, and man is that wholly entertaining, LOL.

Though the movie is mostly funny, there are some segments that have the power to cause fear or discomfort in pretty obscure ways, but from my perspective, it's mostly just because Dasha is pretty genuinely scary in general, so every single time she's on the camera it's super intense. Actually, I ran into my old pal Ariel Pink at the screening, and afterwards he said he felt super terrified through the majority of the film - I thought that was pretty interesting.

Out of the 3 Eugenius films I've seen, I think this one is the least accessible, but it's also the most creative and the most interesting. Unless you're just looking for the absolute weirdest movies you can find, you'll probably want to start with his most mainstream endeavor SPREE starring Stranger Things icon Joe Keery. But, either way, if you're looking for up-and-coming filmmakers who are really molding a path for themselves by doing something truly unique, Eugene Kotlyarenko absolutely should be on your radar. And if you don't know who Ryan Trecartin is, you should probably watch I-Be Area after you're done with that. It SENT ME when they dropped the Trecartin reference in The Code - the spirit has been there all along.